Blog-a-thon....

OK everyone... after my most faithful blog reader (aka Pops) reminded me that I am terribly behind on the blog, I have been motivated to catch up. After a nice 11 hour sleep last night, I think I am up for it!! I am going to attempt to blog every night for 1 week and hopefully will at least be into October by then. I am also motivated by my little darling's precious pumpkin patch pics that I am dying to blog but I am too OCD to go out of order :)

So, here goes! First up is my wonderful 30th birthday celebration with my family. Charlotte and I headed up I-35 on Wednesday night as Lauren and her bunch were headed west from NOLA at the same time. Football season had officially begun so we had to leave Daddy behind. We all arrived at Nana's around midnight-ish with 3 sleepy babies and 1 wild Owen!!! He was so excited to see everyone and just could not stop giggling until he passed out. It was so adorable. We had a fabulous but exhausting weekend running the goof troop around town, they are a handful!! Nana made one of my favorite dinners for my birthday - Chop Suey, yum!!! Vinny and Lauren hosted the best 30th birthday party ever at Uncle Vinny's new digs!! We are so proud of him and his great new house in Arlington. He has a gorgeous pool and we spent lots of time enjoying it! Jordan and Lofton came to help celebrate, it was so great to see them as it always is. Vinny grilled burgers and Nana brought all of my favorite sides. Nana kept us well fed all weekend! We finished off the weekend by baptizing sweet Hannah and Everett. They looked so darling in their special little outfits. Everett wore his godfather, Uncle Vinny's baptism outfit, and Hannah wore a beautiful dress hand made by our friend Rose. It was a beautiful ceremony followed by a lovely party at Kathy and Fred's house. It was sure hard to leave, I wouldn't mind spending every weekend with my sweet family. I miss them tons.


Breakfast time on Thursday!

Charlotte LOVES her baby cousins

Playdate with Shelley's boys

Auntie and her boy

Charlotte inspecting and kissing on her sweet cousin after way too long!

Love this pic, could they be any cuter??

Stare off!!

FUN at the splash park!

Runnin'

Silly girl

Pretty Hanny and her pretty mama

Charlotte "borrowing" a complete strangers bike, she's not shy!

I love this girl.

Goofy kids

Mother hen

Birthday dinner!

My favorite... best birthday guests ever!

Bath time! Thank goodness Nana has a big bathtub!

Breakfast time! There is nothing better than bebe jammies.

Nana sent us to "water the flowers" after breakfast. Ha, you can see what it turned into.


What Mom?? We're just a little wet!

Love this pic. Nana offered them a lollipop at 10am. Wow. We're clearly on vacation!

Classic Ev

Hannah helping in the kitchen

Everett, Charlotte and Lofton sunbathing on the step

My little fish... this picture reminds me how HAPPY she was in the pool!

Nana and Owen relaxing after nap time... notice the fun decorations in the background, so sweet!

Charlotte pushing "baby Lofton" in the stroller, she doesn't realize they are only 4 months apart!

Fun!!!

Baby duty :)


Pops got the easy job! He loves snuggling his grandbabies!

More babies in pj's!

Baptism ceremony at Most Blessed Sacrament

Uncle Vince and Everett - two handsome boys!

Parents and godparents with the babes

Precious Hannah

Terrible pic but the only one I got of Charlotte with her sweet cousins. Hannah is down to her slip but still looks darling!

I loved Kathy's decorations

Pretty (and yummy!) cake

A few things...

that I don't want to forget. I hope I never forget how much fun this age has been. Your sweet words are enough to make my heart melt all day long. You are also VERY entertaining and keep us laughing most of the day. I am not very good with remembering the video camera and I never catch my favorite things anyway so I thought I would document a few.

1. You call your daddy "daddy bear" these days.
2. You call spotted bananas "giraffes" which comes out "yi-raff-a". I think that is so clever. They do look like giraffes :)
3. You seem to forget who you're with often and suddenly look up and say "hi mama!" with the biggest grin like we haven't been together all day long.
4. You love the moon and we have to go out and say goodnight to him every night before bed.
5. If we forget to say grace before we start shoving food in our mouths at dinner, you reach your hands out and say "prayers". You say "Amen!" with lots of enthusiasm at the end.
6. You love football. Last Sunday morning when you're one video of the day was on, you looked up and said "Barney, off! Football game, ON!! Watch it!". Your daddy never got up so quickly and changed it and sure enough you stood there and clapped and watched football.
7. You LOVE babies. You spend lots of time at the Regents games mothering baby Dean. You feed his bottles, wipe his face with his burp cloth and pat his little head. You will be the sweetest big sister ever.
8. You are in love with Owen. You ask for my phone all day long and say "video" meaning to watch the video of you and Owen. You sit there and do that darling belly laugh over and over again at the same 3 minute video. You think he is soooooo funny.
9. You finally say "love you" which sounds like "yuv you" and give great kisses and hugs anytime we request them.
10. If you aren't listening to me and I say "Listen to Mama!" in a stern voice you go sit in a corner and say "time out" on your own. It breaks my heart. You are too good to be true.
11. You call yourself "Char-dit".

My dear Charlotte Grace, I just never imagined I could love you any more than I did the day we met, but I do. Just like we sing every night when we rock, you are my sunshine. You make my world sooooo happy. I love you, sweet baby!

Galveston

Another family weekend! You can see we really made our way through the family reunions this summer!! We spent one weekend in July with all of Jeanne Ann's siblings and their families in Galveston. Sam and Charlotte headed down Thursday night to meet everyone and I flew in Friday afetr work. We spent the whole weekend relaxing - swimming in the pool, checking out the ocean, walking the strand and eating lots of yummy seafood and ice cream! Charlotte had a great time with all of her second cousins. What fun to have lots of little girls in the family for her to play with!

Pool time!

Cruisin' with Phoebe on the beach



Sisters



Playin' in the ocean with Phoebe and Scarlett - Charlote was NOT a fan!


Sleepy girl

Little Larkin - LOVE her!

Phoebe playing with her daddy

Had to document Charlotte's first limo ride! And of course she's naked :) It was HOT waiting on the strand for the Hummer to arrive!!